Review Summary: The black metal outcasts return with another banger.
It must be tough to be a modern black metal band. The genre has been around for about 40 years at this point and trying to come up with fresh ideas has to be exhausting. Luckily, in a genre like this, fans don’t expect a re-invention of the wheel very often. What they really want is riffs, atmosphere, piercing vocals and the occasional icy synth passage. Agriculture is a black metal band from Los Angeles, California and they venture mostly somewhere in the blackgaze stratosphere, but not your typical angelic-sounding blackgaze.
The Spiritual Sound expands on the genre on a nearly profound level.
The self-titled debut album was a bit more straightforward, but still not what fans think of when they think of the blackgaze genre. Odd time signatures and darker, country-tinged tremolo-picked riffs gave them a sadistic, “wild west” style vibe. The riffage here basically continues that same energy while adding in influences from post-hardcore to screamo to post-metal and noise rock. The first two tracks here are more akin to the debut, but the third track, ‘Micah (5:15am)’, really picks up the experimentation. This track sees Agriculture go full-on post-hardcore influenced emoviolence with raw, buzzsaw riffs from Dan and Richard, absolutely ravenous blasts from drummer Kern Haug and some of the most blood-thirsty shrieks courtesy of Leah.
By this point, you might think you know, generally, what direction the album is taking. That is until the fourth track, ‘The Weight’, drops a 10-ton hammer on your skull. The track starts off with sludgy, funeral doom-esque riffage before transitioning into a blizzard of clean, atmospheric tremolo picking with riffs in the background that sound extremely like the early-2000s post-hardcore/emo wave. The overall murk of the song might remind the listener of the dense, blackened atmospheric sludge greatness of the last two Cobalt albums. It doesn’t end there with the variety of influences. ‘Dan’s Love Song’ harkens back to the early 90s when dream pop anthems and misty shoegaze whirlwinds were all the rage. It’s not one of my personal favorites here, but it goes to show just how far Agriculture has expanded since their first album.
This album really doesn’t hit its tallest peak until two of the last three tracks. ‘Bodhidharma’ is absolutely devilish and straight-up scary at times. The main sound is a tribal/ritual ambient style paired with haunting female vocals, massive and suffocating post-metal riffs and glitchy electronics. It sounds like the anthem for the grand opening to a portal to Hell. Just an absolute mammoth of horror and plague-like imagery. That leads into ‘Hallelujah’, which is, by far, the worst track here and sounds out of place even on an album with many different sounds. Just boring, monotonous slowcore with absolutely awful clean vocals. Final track, ‘The Reply’, more than makes up for it though, continuing the melancholic slowcore sound, but executing at a way higher level and also adding a huge background of post-metal riffs. The atmosphere is super hazy and makes the ear-splitting riffs soar sublimely.
The Spiritual Sound may sound like a bit of a mess, and it kind of is, but it’s a beautiful mess. None of the influences here sound like they don’t belong, with the awful slowcore on ‘Hallelujah’ being the only exception. This album might not flow as perfectly as others or have one consistent style, but what it does have is riffs, balls and atmosphere aplenty, and when creating music based in black metal, it doesn’t get any better than that. I’m very interested to see where Agriculture goes from here, but one thing is clear, they’re not afraid to venture into new and exciting territory.
